40 Ladies faced rather cool and breezy conditions at Colemans Cottage Fishery, Essex last Saturday (08 June) and the match, fished on Stepfield Lake, proved – according to the ATr report – to be one ‘of two halves’ with the first nine weights all coming from the front halve of the lake, even though the back half had extra fish stocked earlier in the week.
Former Ladies’ National Champion and England International Emma Pickering (Doncaster AA) ran out the winner with her 32kg 500g weight, a mixed bag of F1s, smallish carp and silver fish taken mainly on worm tails. Emma started at 4 metres on Peg 21, but had to follow the fish out to 6-7 metres to stay in touch with them.
Emma said:
“I felt happy when I drew the peg after speaking to a couple of the local lads during the week leading up to the match I was in the area I needed to be. My match was really straightforward: I started at 4 metres with pellets and a worm head on the hook. By the end of the match I was fishing 7 metres. I just followed the fish out throughout the match. I started by feeding micro pellets, but the fish didn’t seem to want to settle, so I changed to 4mm pellets so there were less particles going in my peg and this made a huge difference.”
I am absolutely thrilled to have won the National again it’s been a long six years trying to win again, and I’ve just missed the top spot in the last few National Championships, and for our team to win as well has made it even better.”
Runner up position was taken by Suffolk County Gold angler Jessica Knights on Peg 3 with 25kg 630g, a mixed bag taken up in the water to start off with some better fish down in the margins later on. Jessica was the highest placed Under 21 angler and so took the Claire Dagnall Memorial Trophy. Sophie Davis, (Starlets AS) last year’s champion took third place with a mixed bag fishing pellet short to start with and using the method feeder to the island before eventually coming in close to finish with 24kg 720g from peg 11.In fourth place was Elizabeth Larkin from Colchester on peg 2 with 21kg 920g.
The team trophy was taken by the Doncaster Quartet of Emma Pickering, Sam Perkins, Abi Kendall and Samantha Sim with a total weight of 88kg 770g. Second place went to Suffolk County Red with 62kg 500gram, and last year’s winners, Starlets AS, finished third with 58kg 160g.
